This has been a strong Christmas trading period for the
Partnership despite the non-food market seeing significant shifts
in trade patterns and the grocery market continuing to be
challenging.

Our performance reflects to a large extent the significant
investment we have made in our distribution and IT capability.
Despite the fact trade was even more concentrated across a number
of very busy shopping days, our operations performed especially
well.

One of the most interesting details of the updating is the
"significant shifts in trade patterns" that Sir Charlie mentions.
Traditionally, Christmas saw a slow ramp up of sales for
retailers, starting in the last few weeks of November and peaking
sometime around Christmas.

But now John Lewis says there are three peaks – Black Friday,
Christmas, and the start of its clearance sales. Other than
recent American import Black Friday, that list might not sound
surprising. But John Lewis says sales are getting more and more
bunched up around these peaks as everyone piles in at the same
time.

That's a logistical nightmare for retailers. On Black Friday,
John Lewis' distribution teams were processing the equivalent of
5 parcels per second. That's why Sir Charlie is keen to highlight
John Lewis' investment in distribution and IT — it needs to do
this to keep its system from collapsing.

But five parcels per second means the operation is surely almost,
if not already, at capacity. Retailers would much rather sales
were spread out more evenly across the period, rather than bunch
around these three new peaks.

John Lewis has left its profit forecast for the year unchanged at
between £270 million ($395.4 million) and £320 million ($468.6
million), a dip from last year's figure of £342.7 million ($501.9
million). But the retailer is keen to stress that this is mainly
down to a £60 million ($87.8 million) hit it's taking on its
pension fund because of market volatility.